Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Emily Wing Smith

As
our talent pool of local authors is starting to see another
resurgence in works, more of those people are getting national
exposure and have their works featured to wider audiences. Especially
with the older teen and young adult areas for the grit as well as the
reminiscent. Such is the case with Emily Wing Smith, who's book The
Way He Lived earned her a spotlight in the market and put her
name in the mix of popular young-adult readers. I got a chance to
briefly chat with her before she had to dash over the weekend,
talking briefly about her career as well as her book. ---

Emily:I’ve always
wanted to be a writer, and I always wanted to write the kind of books
that I was reading, or were being read to me.

Gavin:
When did you begin to take an interest in writing, and what were
some of your favorite titles growing up and to today?

Emily:At age five I
wanted to write and illustrate picture books, at age eight I wanted
to write chapter books, at age eleven I wanted to write the next
Babysitters Club. I guess
when I started reading young adult fiction, I stopped wanting to read
or write anything else! In fact, while I still read some books for
adults, I prefer YA. In fact, I am extremely fortunate to live near
some amazing YA authors like Sara Zarr, Ann Cannon, Ann Dee Ellis,
and lots of others. I have other local friends whose books have
debuted this year or will next year, like Sydney Salter and Bree
Despain. It’s amazing to see the community of YA authors in the
Wasatch Front growing so rapidly, with such a high caliber of work. I
love reading their books! As for what I read as a teen, I liked
basically anything YA that was thought-provoking and based in the
real world (I still don’t read much sci-fi/fantasy). I loved books
by M.E Kerr, and still do.

click to enlarge

Gavin:
What made you decide to go to BYU for your Bachelors? And what was
their program like?

Emily:I started
seriously writing young adult fiction in college. As an English
major at BYU I took a class on writing the young adult novel and knew
that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I
submitted and got rejected. I got married. I graduated
from college. I bought my first house. I submitted more.
I got rejected more.

Gavin:
After that you went out and got your MFA from Vermont College. Why
switch schools for a different degree, and how did Vermont compare to
BYU?

Emily:I applied to the
MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont
College. I learned tons, had great advisers, and made terrific
friends. I graduated from Vermont College with a novel finished
that I felt good about. It wasn't one of the manuscripts submitted
and rejected previously.

click to enlarge

Gavin:
How did the idea come about for the book The
Way He Lived?

Emily:As a teenager, I
moved to a community where a boy my age had recently died on a
camping trip. Occasionally, I would meet people who had known and
loved him, and I was amazed by their diversity—bad boys, good
girls, and everyone in-between. It’s interesting to get to know
someone only through what others say about him—especially when you
know you won’t get the chance to meet him yourself. That’s how I
came up with the idea for The
Way He Lived-- I wanted to
re-create that experience.

Gavin:
What was the writing process like from start to finish, and what
difficulties did you run into along the way?

Emily:People often ask
me why I chose to write the book with multiple narrators and points
of view. I didn’t really choose
to write it that way—this story came to me as a collage of voices,
each voice telling me how he or she was dealing with Joel’s death.
So having six different narrators wasn’t as much of a challenge as
each one needing to be told in a specific style. It’s actually a
pretty inefficient way to write a book, and I wouldn’t recommend
it, but for me it was the only way.

click to enlarge

Gavin:
When you finally had a draft how was it for you finding a publisher?
And how did you finally come across Flux?

Emily:Carrie Jones,
one of my VC BFFs, read the new manuscript and liked it. Her
own YA, Tips On
Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend, had
debuted from Flux earlier that year. Flux, an imprint of
Llewellyn Publications devoted exclusively to YA fiction, had just
opened its doors, and Carrie recommended I submit to her editor,
Andrew Karre. I did, he liked it, and the rest is history.
The Way He Lived was
published a year later.

Gavin:
What did it feel like for you to finally see it come out and read
the reviews for it?

Emily:When the book
debuted, one of its first reviews was a star from Publishers Weekly!
I was so honored. Of course, nothing is more gratifying than getting
local recognition for my work. I love knowing that people here “get
it” and appreciate what I’m doing.